How is this speedrun possible? Super Mario Bros. World Record Explained

Kosmic (4;55.913)

Chapters:
00:00 - Introduction
00:35 - 1-1, Flagpole glitch, Framerules
03:03 - 1-2
04:00 - 4-1, Hitboxes, Flagpole glitch #2
05:35 - 4-2, Wall clip, Wrong warp, Plant despawn
10:00 - 8-1, Flag subpixel manipulation, "Judges"
13:50 - 8-2, Bullet Bill glitch, Start delay, Lag frame
17:38 - 8-3, Stomp from below, 242 timer
20:00 - 8-4, Wall jump, Wrong warp #2, Bowser hammers, Timer discrepancy
24:48 - Conclusion

Notes:
At 0;47, I refer to the console Kosmic is using as the Nintendo Famicom Disk System. He wasn't actually playing on the Disk System, just the Famicom. The Famicom is essentially the Japanese equivalent of the NES, and the Disk System is an add-on to it that reads special floppy disks.

At 4;06, I mention that Kosmic holds the Glitchless WR with a 5;06.709. However, there is a video by Scott Kesler of a 5;05. This is because of timing differences. Glitchless is how Twin Galaxies (a deprecated high score website) view Super Mario Bros. speedruns, and its timing rules are different. They time from the start press on the title screen, which, because of framerules, adds a variation of up to 21 frames to the time of the run based on which frame you pressed start on. This timing difference adds about 2.5 seconds, so Scott Kesler's 5;05 was actually a high 5;07 by TG rules, and Kosmic's 5;06.709 is a low 5;04 with regular timing.

At 13;15, I say that when the white pixel is missing, the judges are in a bad mood. For the sake of simplicity, I omitted that it's actually a 50/50 of good/bad judges if you don't get the pixel. However, this is frame dependent and not entirely random, and Kosmic rarely gets good judges with the bad pixel, so I took that shortcut.

At 16;15, I say that the game only handles collisions on even frames. This is not accurate. It handles collisions on every other frame, but not necessarily even/odd. The parity of the frames depends on which frame the level was loaded on, so it flips on every framerule.

At 26;35, I claim that the theoretical human limit is 4;55.496. The actual time is 4;55.49668, and it should have been rounded up to 4;55.497.

Other speedrunners featured in this video:

darbian

somewes

StuckInAPlate

EddieCatGaming

andrewg

HappyLee

Special Thanks, for helping in some manner:
Kosmic
somewes
HappyLee
SummoningSalt
EZScape
darbian
andrewg
StuckInAPlate
EddieCatGaming
Znernicus
theballaam96
1ted59

[edvardvida]

For me the most fascinating is how people were able to figure these things out.

[Mayrink.]

01:05 - Flagpole Glitch
01:25 - Framerules
03:16 - "How did he not die?"
03:40 - "How did he manage to jump on the pipe?"
04:15 - "He jumped right through that piranha plant!" (Hitboxes)
05:56 - Wrong Warp
06:48 - Wall Clip
09:28 - Hitting The Wall vs Turning Around
10:14 - Goomba Despawning
10:53 - "Why the top of the flagpole?"
12:06 - Hitting The Star Block & Subpixel Position
12:53 - Judges
14:19 - Bullet Bill Glitch
15:40 - Waiting On The Title Screen & Bullet Bill Manipulation
16:11 - Coin Toss & Demo Trivia
17:04 - Lag Frame
17:43 - Split Clarification
18:00 - Hammer Brothers Predictability
18:12 - Stomping From Underneath
18:44 - Avoiding Fireworks
19:00 - 8-3 Flagpole Glitch
20:03 - 8-4 Every Frame Counts
20:24 - Piranha Plant Disappearing
21:07 - Frame/Pixel Perfection & Wall Jump
21:50 - Fast Acceleration & Wrong Warp
22:39 - Fire Bars Hitboxes & Walking Underwater Costs Frames
23:07 - Hammer Patterns & Hitboxes
23:56 - Manual Split Time vs Official Time
24:49 - "Is this run beatable?"
26:41 - GG

[pboytrif]

I dont have any idea whats going on, but im absolutely hooked to the explanations in this video

[Kaitri]

What maniac figured out waiting at the titlescreen for a few seconds changds a bulletbills pattern in 8.2

[humanpersn]

I never knew I could be entertained by a 27 minute video talking about pixels and glitches in mario!
Great video!

[nonnenhut]

Playing absolutely perfect and then jump randomly into the hammers is kind of cruel.

[JohnWarosa]

My friend: "what are frame rules?"
Me: "yes okay, so imagine a bus"

[Hyperstridez]

Me: Doesn't seem so hard

What's actually happening: From the angle of how he's looking at his monitor, he manipulates mario to move 0.0001 pixels which is able to glitch him to the end of the game.

[MathiasDahl]

Mind. Blown. I had no idea this level of detail was involved in the speedrun domain.

[dog]

Imagine being princes peach, you get kidnapped and rescued within 5 minutes lol

[goatsandbullets]

"But first, we have to talk about-"
*PARALLEL UNIVERSES*
"-framerules"

[RdTrler]

Newton's Third Law:
"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
Indeed, if you make contact with a wall and immediately begin to move away from it,
the equal and opposite reaction would be the wall pulling you in.

[AverageTreyVG]

Excellent, I actually learned a lot more from this than I thought I would.

[TatoAV]

Wow... This is a full on investigation soo complete that it never ceases to amaze, this is so well done, you deserve some kind of recognition

[Blackadder]

This is completely surreal. A whole world I never knew existed.

[justincase]

"The limits are never where we think they are"
Nice rule to live by

[shinobix]

This was actually enlightening on the amount of time, practice, but most of all, research, that goes into speed running.
Before today, if you told me someone told that some guy spent several months looking into super Mario bros in order to beat a record by 0.00.066 secs (or whatever unit of timing it was) I wouldn't be too impressed, but after seeing the amount of work done behind the scenes, only for it completely fly over the heads of all the casuals watching (myself included), this definitely changed my viewpoint towards speedrunners. And the craziest thing is that they usually just act like it's all fun and games.
SERIOUSLY, that guy was (including, not limited to);
a frame away from missing his "bus"

a pixel away from fucking up the final level

had whether or not he could take it easy decided by a single white pixel

And after all of that whether could even make it past bowser's hammer was determined completely by LUCK, the final milliseconds of a perfect run could of been completely annihilated by some bad luck and the guy was just casually smiling the whole way through.
People are constantly asking if speed running counts as a legitimate sport but speed runners have to be one of the most patient, enduring and hard working people I've ever heard of.

So to all speed runners out there, I SALUTE YOU, for all the hard work you've done to entertain the minority that understands.
Keep on running.

[RomualdFlibustier]

I wasn't prepared for the Bowser hammers spreadsheet. Is it even possible to do something more niche than that ?
These guys are insane... in a brilliant way.

[theemreunal]

Princess Peach: Come over
Mario: But you’re stuck in a castle
Princess Peach: My parents aren’t home
Mario:

[Avanorne]

When I first opened this I scoffed to myself "a 27 minute video for a 4:55 run?" and then watched the entire fucking thing because it was riveting. Fantastic work man.